the lowly Shepherds Marvel 2025

Peter and the treehouse

Business meeting

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This artwork was given to Mrs Davidson, the 1st and 2nd grade teacher at Tri City Adventist School. You can tell these kids are exercising their imaginations and developing some fantastic skills.

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This artist had such grand aspirations that they needed a larger canvass, so they taped together four sheets of paper and drew this great image of God in heaven and the teacher and themselves, plus a few extras tidbits for artistic expression.

When teachers and parents receive these pieces of artwork we might say something like "that's amazing" or "that's wonderful" or "that's beautiful."

Are we marveling at the art for art’s sake? Or are we excited to see how our children express themselves and learn? Of course, it’s the child that we love to see and to praise. The art by itself is not uniquely amazing or wonderful apart from the artist children that we love.

Let’s take a moment to consider the word “amazing.” It’s purpose is as an over-the-top superlative—a word that is beyond comparison.

Let's say we were comparing artwork; we might say that

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one piece is good,

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another is better, and

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another piece is the best of the bunch. But then someone brings in a fourth piece

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and nothing else we've seen can compare—that's when we say "that's amazing."

What does "amazing" mean?

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To cause great surprise or wonder; astonishment.

There are few words that share this category with amazing. A few examples are "awe" and "marvel" and "wonder."

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Awe: a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder

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Marvel: be filled with wonder or astonishment

Notice how amazing and awe and marvel all have the word "wonder" somewhere in their definition. What is wonder?

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Wonder: a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.

In their pure form these words are reserved for the most exclusive experiences.

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And yet, our world has very little that we truly wonder at any more. Science has removed the mystery from so much of nature, and the internet has put the answers to our remaining questions at our fingertips. We rarely stop to examine something with wonder and awe at it's mysteries. Instead of letting our minds be absorbed in the magnitude and significance of something, we search for an explanation, one that necessarily brings the experience down to the realm of words and logic. When we are curious about something  we google the answer. Then, having the answer, we move on to something else. We don't stop and wonder any more.

Maybe it's a good thing that we look at the world through the lens of logic and the scientific method. People used to have some really crazy ideas about how things worked before scientists had the tools to carefully research things and find the truth. Yet I can't help wondering if our hearts have been hardened just a little bit. Maybe our organ that responds with amazement and wonder has been robbed of it's power because of our quantifying, qualifying and comparing.

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For many of us the story of Jesus' birth is one of the many deflated stories that has lost it's wonder in our hearts. We've heard it over and over again and to some of us it's just a story. Sure, there is theological significance — God coming to earth, the incarnation, the messiah—but we spiritualize and theologize rather than pausing in awe and wonder.

This year let's look at this story again with an attempt to peel away the logic and the science and the coldness of our hearts to experience the story of Jesus with wonder again.

Mary and Joseph

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It was a time when God hadn't talked to His people for hundreds of years. Miracles didn't seem to happen any more. In that way the time was a lot like ours today. The place wasn't their choice, they had to go because the government required them to be registered to pay taxes. That too was ordinary. Secular. Uninteresting. What was interesting is that Joseph brought with him the pregnant Mary who was betrothed to him.

In that time the parents of the bride and groom would arrange the marriage and pay the bride price. From the time of that contract the marriage was binding even though the bride and groom wouldn't be officially married or live together until after the marriage ceremony which might be many months away. This was called a betrothal period. In their time of betrothal an angel told Joseph that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that he should proceed with the wedding since Mary had not been unfaithful to him.

This first piece of the story is AMAZING. We won't spend any time on the particulars of how, but let's just say that this had never happened before. Mary was pregnant and had never been with a man. Not only that, but a supernatural being of light and glory had visited both Mary and then Joseph to tell them this wasn't an ordinary pregnancy. That this was literally God—the Messiah, the Christ—in the form of a baby inside Mary!

Pause.

Take a moment to be filled with wonder.

This is an awe inspiring thought.  — God became a baby. — A zygote, an embryo. If this isn't beyond science and logic, I don't know what is. There is no way to quantify or qualify or compare this to anything that has even happened on earth before or since. This is marvelous.

Birth

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As miraculous and amazing as this story begins, it is a real story of real people and real challenges. Joseph brought Mary to Bethlehem and Luke records that Mary gave birth to Jesus, wrapped him in strips of cloth and used an animal feeder with straw in it as a crib. That was all she had because they were staying in a stable since there was no rooms available anywhere in Bethlehem and RV's hadn't been invented yet.

Don't give in to your temptation to gloss over these details and idealize them with songs. There's no way any of you would consider having a baby in a barn. Maybe  your bedroom with candles and soft music and a midwife with all her medical equipment nearby. Maybe the back seat of a car as you race to the hospital. But never a working barn.

Mary didn't have a choice. The time had come, and her baby was going to be born one way or another so she did the best she could with what she had. I'm sure Joseph gathered as much clean straw as he could find and laid out all the blankets they brought with them and a few more from the kind people living nearby. I imagine there was water drawn from the town well.

Mary might have given birth to the Son of God, but to her it was still the painful and beautiful event of childbirth.

baby in womb 

Even though we know all the details of an embryo’s development and even though we have images of babies at every stage of growth inside the womb, birth is still something to marvel at, even when it’s not the birth of the Son of God.

Pause.

Take a moment to be filled with wonder.

Angels & Shepherds

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That night, just after Jesus was born, the angels who had been imperceptibly hovering around Mary and Joseph had to express their joy—they needed people to share in the glory and wonder of the event. God had come to earth!

Shepherds were watching their sheep in a field near Bethlehem. Without warning the night was filled with the light of an angel who was covered in the glory of God.

Before we get into that, let’s roll the story back to earlier that day.

Imagine that you were in that group of shepherds. As you tended your sheep you were talking about how God promised a messiah. You had prayed in your evening prayers that God would send the Christ to deliver you. As you sat around the campfire you had wondered what kind of things the Messiah would do. Maybe someone brought up the prophecies of Daniel and wondered at the timing since you were now living near the end of that prophecy. Suddenly, your sheep were illuminated by a light so bright that even the sun was no comparison and yet you could see a figure in the light. It was a light so pure that you wondered if you should even look at it. You were startled and filled with fear.

Then you heard the voice of the figure in the light. It was so warm and full as he said,

Luke 2:10–12 NLT

but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

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The blazing figure was then joined by more angels—a large number that Luke refers to as a "host" of angels—and they all sang an anthem of rejoicing with such harmony and beauty and volume! The whole hillside echoed and reechoed the song long after they had ascended to heaven and disappeared from view.

Pause.

Be filled with wonder.

Wonder that the angels came. Wonder that they sang.

Oh! What a song that must have been.

I love the music that our church sings, sometimes it even seems like angels must be singing with us. But to hear a choir of actual angels?! Their vocal chords untainted by the degeneration of sin. Their memory for music, perfect. Their skill in harmony and melody unmatched by any talent on earth. A millennia to practice the song. What would that have been like?

I’ve been trying to think of how to bring you into that experience. How could we imagine the awe of the shepherds at the angel’s song? Maybe this will help…

Tuning the Audience

Jacob Collier is famous for involving his audience in his music. He gets the whole audience to sing and then he leads an improvised choir. If you’re watching this on your TV or a device at home, make sure to turn up the volume or put your headphones on to get the most out of the next few minutes.

video, tuning the audience Audio Required

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I wish I could convey to our deaf members how amazing it is to hear hundreds of human voices singing together in such harmony. Jacob Collier has a unique talent, but I’m sure this is NOTHING. Pitiful by comparison to what the angels sang. What wonder the shepherds must have been filled with. What awe.

There’s no way, this side of heaven, that we can duplicate the shepherds’ experience, but I do feel like we need to try to place our hearts in that moment of wonder. I’m going to play a song that tries in a noble, albeit feeble way to convey the majesty of that song. Close your eyes if you need to, and let your heart be filled with wonder as you listen to angels from the reals of glory by the Piano Guys.

video — angels from the realms of glory** Audio required

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After the angels disappeared the shepherds excitedly left their sheep to go find the baby the angels told them about.

Had the people in Bethlehem seen the light and heard the angel choir? We don't know, but as soon as the shepherds had seen the baby in the manger they couldn't keep their excitement inside. Luke says they

Luke 2:17 NLT

…told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.

Luke 2:18–19 NLT

All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary [treasured] all these things in her heart and thought about them often.

This seems to be a trend with wonder and amazement—we like to share it.

snow through a window

Imagine waking up in the morning and opening the curtains and, to your surprise, you see the first snow of the season falling outside and blanketing everything in gorgeous white. You're probably going to call out to the others in the house, "It's snowing! Come see."

We want to share our joy and amazement. Maybe snow isn't your thing, but you get what I'm talking about—we've all done it at one time or another.

Kids want to share their latest art piece or lego project or a new skill on their musical instrument. Especially when it's the first time you've accomplished something or experienced something, the desire to share seems to overwhelm you.

I think that's one of the reasons our hearts grow apathetic. The older we get and the more times we experience something the less wonder and amazement we have.

In Luke's Christmas story the shepherds marveled at Christ's birth, the townspeople were filled with wonder and Mary treasured all these things in her heart.

You and I don't easily have this sense of wonder and we tend not to treasure it in our hearts. Maybe that's one reason why it's not bubbling out of us to share with others—we haven't recently been filled with wonder.

picking up rocks

A few years ago I was walking with Adelyn and she kept stopping to pick up rocks. She still has some of those rocks in her room, by the way. She showed me every new discovery—the tiny rock, the white rock, the shiny rock—everything was amazing to her.

To me those rocks are like hundreds of other rocks that I've seen. I know they came from a quarry and went through a crushing machine. I know they have no real value other than for paving the road. I know the really smooth rocks have been in river beds and smoothed out by water tumbling over them. Somehow knowing shuts off the wonder. So when Adelyn handed me a cute little white rock my temptation was to say "thanks" and then toss it behind me.

But turn the tables and the story is very different. Let's say I were to bend over and pick up an interesting looking rock, and then show it to little Adelyn. She would grab the rock from me, press it to her heart with joy at finding something so new and interesting, and then put it in her pocket to keep forever.

That's what wonder does to us. It overwhelms us so that we want to share it with others and keep it forever.

Conclusion

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What miracles have you stopped being amazed by?

Are you still amazed by falling snow?

Do you still marvel at the miracle of friendship and human love?

Are you filled with awe at the thought of a God who loves you?

Have you wept recently as you were overcome by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross?

Have you pondered the great mystery of Christianity, Christ in you, the hope of glory?

Do you treasure the thought that the Holy Spirit has made His home in you?

Have you stopped to look at your life? Really paused to wonder at how God has been shaping you into His image?

There is so much about God, his creation and his salvation that we should always marvel at.

The shepherds marveled at the angels song and told everyone about the baby Messiah.

The townspeople wondered at the news that God was again talking to his people and that their savior had come.

Mary pondered it all and kept it close to her heart.

This Christmas, spend some time pondering. Don't let your life get overwhelmed with holiday business or social engagements. Don't allow your mind to explain away the miracle or your long years with God dull the awe.

Be filled with wonder at God’s amazing gift.

Be overcome by awe, and then with your heart overflowing, share the amazing story with someone who doesn't know it or hasn't yet realized how awesome it is.

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Merry Christmas.

May you be filled with wonder.

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Please stand with me as we conclude our service with a song of praise.